Building relationships in a cloud-first world: An interview with new Dynatrace SVP of partners and alliances

I recently sat down with the new SVP of alliances and partner sales at Dynatrace, Jay Snyder, to learn more about his vision, inspiration, and hopes for the future of the Dynatrace partner program.

A technology veteran, with more than 32 years of experience in the space, Snyder’s passion continues to be fueled by commitment and innovation. He regards his greatest motivation as the opportunity to bring new and innovative solutions to the market to enhance partnerships and delight customers. His secret to success? Perspective, priorities, and attitude. As he put it, “Attitude is super-important. It is the only single thing you can control.”

With a strong background working for some of the largest names in technology, including Accenture, Oracle, and EMC, Snyder has seen the face of technology continue to evolve. He credits his success to his connections and desire to collaborate with and mentor others. His excitement to be part of the Dynatrace team is palpable; he says this stems from the people around him who embody the same attitude. Snyder’s eyes light up as he describes how the support and commitment of Dynatrace leadership (spearheaded by Dan Zugelder, Dynatrace chief revenue officer, and Rick McConnell, CEO) to continue to elevate partners and company culture fuels his passion and excitement to see what we can accomplish together.

Leading the way: Building a future on the foundation of trust

According to Snyder, the adage is true: “People like to do business with people they like and trust.” He credits navigating the partner business with the ability to work cross-functionally, bringing people together to achieve a common goal, and being comfortable giving not great news. He says, “I want to make sure I’m doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. This is not a popularity contest; it’s about doing what is right for Dynatrace, our partners, and our customers.”

• Building strong relationships. For solution partners, Snyder’s vision is focused on uplifting partners to be able to build strong, profitable, scalable businesses with Dynatrace.
• Building Dynatrace into larger plans. For global solution integrators (GSIs), success is about taking a cloud-centric approach and using observability as the underpinning of a successful cloud strategy. Embedding Dynatrace into several go-to-market motions enables our GSIs to deliver seamless cloud migration, adoption, and digital transformation.
• Creating frictionless business. For hyperscalers, it’s about making it easy to do business. It’s communicating the value of embedding Dynatrace into how their customers consume cloud services so that their sales teams prefer to do business with Dynatrace. Dynatrace is focused on building business plans that address how Dynatrace and partners align from a go-to-market, branding, and marketing perspective to capture more market share.
• For managed service providers (MSPs), it’s about design wins, ensuring that we are a key layer in their IT stack of services that they both use and deploy to their customers.

Support from within: Backed by Dynatrace leadership

Supporting Snyder is the entire Dynatrace leadership team, which is equally enthusiastic to have him lead the partner team.

“In today’s landscape, a robust partner ecosystem is indispensable. It helps expand our customer reach and drives superior business results through collaborative efforts. Jay Snyder, an influential leader with deep partner connections, will be instrumental in steering Dynatrace toward sustained expansion and success.” – Dan Zugelder

“Partners are mission critical to our business and are a fundamental aspect of broadening our customer reach. We are counting on partners, including GSIs, hyperscalers, and others, to accelerate origination and expand service delivery. Jay will be instrumental in driving partner success to help Dynatrace accelerate long-term growth.” – Dynatrace CEO, Rick McConnell

When speaking about his vision for the future or how he is going to make an impact, Snyder links every example back to listening, engaging, and taking action.

Turning vision into action

Snyder’s plans for the future include initiatives like a partner advisory council to capture input for current rollouts and the future vision of the platform. Given their proximity to customers and technology within a holistic ecosystem at scale, capturing partners’ unique perspectives is crucial. Relaying these insights to our product team for integration into our roadmap and platform enhancements is vital for success.

For more resources on Dynatrace partners, check out our resource center.